


Every Time You Leave

by yespolkadot_kitty



Series: Nightingale Verse [2]
Category: The Equalizer (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Tumblr request, nightingale verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: A Tumblr request with the prompt: "what does a gunshot wound feel like?"
Relationships: Dave York/Reader, Dave York/You
Series: Nightingale Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845097
Kudos: 16





	Every Time You Leave

“Do you know what a gunshot wound feels like?”

You set the tools down on the bloody swathe of sterile gauze and meet York’s eyes. He looks tired; he looks his age, his face pale, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, from the black ops mission or from the bullet removal, you’re not sure.

“No,” you say slowly, starting to stitch the wound. The local anaesthetic you gave him will wear off soon and the wound will burn like a thousand angry suns.

You can feel his gaze on your face as you work. Sitting up in the raised hospital bed, his body is bare up to the waist. You’ve never seen him entirely naked, although he’s been inside you once. You stitched him up that time, too. You’re always fixing him, sewing closed his hurts the way you wish you could pull closed the rivets he’s worn into your heart.

“It’s like nothing else,” York says slowly. His voice is low, raspy, and has always tempted you to sin. If you had his number, you’d dial his voicemail just to hear his voice when you’re in bed alone, in the dark. You would listen to his husky edged intonations and imagine his hands parting your thighs.

You sew another tiny, neat stitch.

York swallows. “The pain never gets less intense. Every time I think I’ve been shot enough…. It’s always like all consuming fire. Having the flames lick your skin off, once milimetre at a time.”

The ragged edges of his voice tug at your heart.

How many times have you done exactly this, stitched a wound, fished out a bullet, and felt nothing?

Too many times to recall.

But what is it about David York that pokes at your mind? He’s burrowed his way under your skin, and you can’t weed him out, even if you want to.

But you don’t want to. You don’t want to stop seeing his big, soulful brown eyes. You don’t want to stop feeling the topography of his skin, warm under your hands. You don’t want to forget the timbre of his voice when he calls you  _ Florence, _ your own shared little joke.

“Why do you do it?” you ask, when you clip off the final stitch, fighting the urge to press your lips to the sutured skin. He’ll have a scar, to join the map of his others.

One shoulder rises and falls in a half-shrug. “What else is a guy like me going to do?”

You set the needle down and reach above York’s head to shut off the bright lamp you’d turned on for the close stitch work. “Anything, David. You could do  _ anything. _ ”

His mouth twists. “Try telling the VA that.”

You draw in a deep breath. You should never have kissed him, touched him, let him touch you. But then he’d said  _ I don’t know how many songs I have left, _ and the image of him broken and lifeless somewhere had opened a vast cavern inside you, that could only be filled by his touch, and scent, and voice.

“David..”

He lifts a hand, cups your cheek, running his thumb over your lower lip. You slip your tongue out, lave his skin. “Florence. I wish things were different.”

So do you. But you try to picture him in your apartment, his clothes strewn across your bed, his beer in the fridge, his scent on your pillow. He doesn’t fit there. You only see him in night hunting black or camo, only know his body battered and bloody. Only know his kisses as punctuating the time you have left together.

“But they’re not,” you whisper, and unbidden, a tear rolls down your cheek.

York catches it with his lips, leaning forward as his mouth ghosts over your skin. “Florence. Don’t cry, honey.”

It’s the first time he’s used such an endearment with you, and a little mewl escapes your lips. York kisses it away, and you drop all pretense of trying not to let him affect you, sliding your hands into his hair and tugging at the soft, caramel mass until he’s as close as he can be, until your breaths mingle as you kiss.

“I don’t want this,” you pant out, one hand in his hair, the other pressed against his heart. “This empty space where my heart used to be. You take it with you every time you leave.”

“I’ll ask McCall to find another doctor,” York murmurs against your lips, the edges of his voice ragged. He rests his forehead on yours and you breathe in the scent of antiseptic gauze and leather and gunpowder.

“Please, don’t.”

“Florence,” he breathes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

You curl your hand on his heart into a fist. “Promise me you won’t die.”

Silence threads between you. He can’t promise that, you  _ know _ he can’t, and yet you hang on, praying he’ll say the words. But you get the sense that York has never lied to you, and if he started now, you don’t know what that would mean.

Instead he tucks a curl of hair behind your ear, his touch gentle as butterfly wings. “Florence. Just tell me what to do.”

“Stay,” you say brokenly, and you climb up on the wide bed next to him, snuggle in as he lies down, shifting to accommodate you. His skin is warm and you stroke your finger over the hollow of his throat, count his heartbeats. “Just stay.”

“For as long as I can, Nightingale,” York whispers back, his breath hitching, and then he turns his head to kiss your hair, and you shut off the rational, screaming part of your brain, and just breathe him in, for as long as you’ve got.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
